World Cup 2010: Netherlands team are united

EVEN the training sessions will provoke outbreaks of joyful, blaring mayhem here.

WORLD CUP 2010: Netherlands' head coach Bert van Marwijk talks to his team in South Africa []

As Holland’s players began their first gentle jog in the sun yesterday, a roar went up from the crowded stand.

Everyone burst into song and the siren wail of the vuvuzela horns began once more.

It happened again when they turned around and ran back across their pitch.

It does not take much to get a standing ovation at the World Cup of noise and frenzy. This is the crazily happy mood of South Africa as the countdown reaches critical mass.

The uplifting news for the Dutch is that their infamously fractious football squad is reflecting a similar sort of spirit of unity.

At too many tournaments the rich prospects offered by the Orange nation’s prolific ability to produce fabulous footballers has been shattered by fall-outs, walk-outs and in-fighting. The free Dutch character has been too free.

This time, the talk is of the Big Four who will unite and make Holland surge beyond their status as the tournament’s dark horses to the glory their brand of the game has deserved for years now.

One of this attacking quartet, Arjen Robben, remains in Rotterdam undergoing treatment on a torn hamstring, but the belief is that he will make it for the later stages.

The remaining three – Arsenal striker Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder of the new European champions Inter Milan, and Real Madrid’s Rafael van der Vaart – did their stuff at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand under the gaze of the boss with the low profile and the high reputation, Bert van Marwijk.

It was clear from the crispness of their work, ahead of Monday’s opening game against Denmark, that this is a squad bristling with confidence.

It was plain from the smartness of the passing and the stringency of the way each player kept possession that Van Marwijk’s assertion – “We like to play the way Barcelona do” – is valid.

This requires teamwork, because it is all about what happens when the team do not have the ball as much as when they do.

The success of Van Marwijk has been to imprint this idea into the psyche of players who once might have had their own agendas. It is why they won all eight qualifying matches conceding only twice.

Up in the stand yesterday, this was given the nod of approval by a Dutchman much more well known in England than the team’s current coach. “There is good chemistry in the group,” said Johnny Metgod, the man who hit the ball as if it required detonation for Nottingham Forest and is now on Derby’s coaching staff.

“They have been together a long time and they had a good qualifying campaign, which always helps. Because of the way we performed in the qualifying stages, we are a team to be reckoned with.

“But that doesn’t give you any guarantees. Individuals can make the difference, but these days it is so much about the team. There is a lot of attacking talent in the Dutch team but that is not the only thing in football. It is far more important how strong the team is.

“If you are strong like that, you can cope with anything – then the individuals like Robben, Van Persie and Sneijder can make the difference.”

Van Marwijk, 58, is the Ol’ Blue Eyes of this tournament. His gaze is striking but it denotes a warmth and a typically cool Dutch approach to life. “He was a left winger so he sets the players free,” one Amsterdam-based commentator suggested.

There is also much more consistency about his selections and his 4-5-1 formation the Dutch alsoenjoyed under their previous coach, Marco van Basten.

Along with this grown-up approach to football comes a grown-up Dutch attitude to life. Van Marwijk, who is the father-in-law of Mark van Bommel, has based the squad in the heart of the Johannesburg business and nightlife hub of Sandton in order to counter any signs of boredom.

When they returned there yesterday, it was into the heart of a maniacal 60,000- strong parade which flooded the streets to watch the South Africa team’s open-top bus tour.

For England, this would have sparked a security panic. The Dutch looked on and smiled. "I worked with Bert as a coach at Feyenoord,” Metgod added. “He is very relaxed, that’s true. But he tells the players exactly what he wants. And then he does not stand for anything less. He wants the team to perform well.

“If in one game Sneijder stands out and in another Van Bommel does, that doesn’t matter to him. It’s about the team. He has always been that kind of manager.” For just such a reason, Van Marwijk is said to dislike all this talk of the Big Four.

The nation back home loves it, however. It tells them that at last they have a team, not just a promise.